Using social media, Iranians fight for a better future

Online communities often drive progress around the world, including in Iran.

Internet-dependent social media and widespread use of messaging apps spur discussion, debate and sometimes grass-roots protest movements. Recently, Iranians took to the streets calling for an end to corruption and for better economic opportunities.

After the first several days of protests, however, Iranians found that Iran’s telecommunications ministry had blocked popular messaging and social media apps.

“The Iranian regime is cutting off internet access in an attempt to shut down communication among the protesters,” said U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley at a January 5 emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. “They are attempting to silence the voice of the Iranian people. We cannot allow that to happen.”

The suppression of this form of free speech is increasingly harmful. In 2009, the last time nationwide protests swept Iran, only 15 percent of Iranians had access to the internet. Today, more than half do. And in a country of 80 million people, 48 million have smartphones.

“Social media is a legitimate form of communications,” said Steve Goldstein, an official with the U.S. Department of State, in encouraging the government of Iran to keep social media sites open.

‘White Wednesdays’ inspire

One particular image that spread through social media has animated the aspirations of everyday Iranians. Whether depicted as a photo, video or illustration, it features an Iranian woman in the middle of a busy street, waving her scarf. To many, she has become the face of the ongoing protests, which started outside of Iran’s capital. (See sidebar for many pre-internet images that have come to symbolize social movements in U.S. history.)

The Iranian woman was actually filmed before the recent protests in Iran and was participating in the White Wednesday movement, in which women wear white to protest their lack of choice about whether to cover their heads in public.

This social media post encourages women to go without headscarves every Wednesday. The comment indicates that the woman in the photo is unknown, but courageous.

Keeping communication alive

Millions of Iranians are finding ways to get around the government’s efforts to block access to the internet, the outside world and each other. Some use anonymous browsers and virtual private networks, or VPNs, which enable citizens to evade geographical restrictions or filters on internet access.

Throughout 2017, more than 4 million Iranians relied on anti-censorship tools provided by the U.S. State Department. As the State Department’s Heather Nauert said January 2, “When a nation clamps down on social media, we ask the question, ‘What are you afraid of?’”

Images propel change

Even before the internet, emotional images shaped social movements in the United States.

Dorothea Lange’s 1936 photo of a 32-year-old mother of seven symbolized the suffering during the Depression and encouraged Americans to do more to help the poor.

(Library of Congress)

The 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, propelled the civil rights agenda.